Time for a roundup of useful links from across this beast we call the world wide web:

• Bittbox has 25 reasons you might be a hardcore graphic/web designer. Sad but true.
• Jason Drohn is stepping out of the woods. If you’re guilty of putting work before everything else (I know I am), then you’ll identify with Jason’s article and hopefully get a reminder that there’s more to life.
• Need to network? Read Edith’s 7 tips for making it easy.
• John at The Small Business Network discusses dealing with dry spells.
• For all you aspiring illustrators, Illustration Castle provides a sample illustration contract and terms.
• Can’t find a publisher for you book? No problem. Lulu is the best idea ever.
• Finally, one more for the graphic designers. I found American Psycho completely traumatic, but there is one scene I will treasure forever. If you haven’t seen the business card scene you will heartily enjoy it. And it’s G rated so you can watch it anywhere

If you have a useful link or article that you think FreelanceSwitch readers would be interested in, Send It In!

Craig Ambrose, New Zealander and programmer extraordinaire has recorded a series of podcasts that are useful listening for any freelancing software developer. While Craig’s podcasts focus on Ruby on Rails, his advice and tips are actually appropriate for any programming freelancer. Podcasts available are:

Getting Started – Leaving your job and the steps to take to get started.

Working from home – A productive work area, good practices to create a disciplined approach to work, and communication with clients.

Your local developer community – The importance of networking in the real world.

Quoting a project 1 – Finding and signing clients.

Quoting a project 2 – Estimating development work.

Contracts and agreements – Formal and informal agreements with clients.

You can also subscribe to his podcasts!

Time for a roundup of useful links from across this beast we call the world wide web:

• For all you design students, DesignSessions is the place to go. Run by editor Anjula Duggal, the blog has a wide variety of expert guest bloggers and covers everything from how to get work to what’s new in the industry.
• Leo Babauta interviewed me for his Golden Goals Series on his blog Zen Habits earlier in the week. He has also interviewed Adam Pash of Lifehacker, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger and Leon Ho of Lifehack.org in this series.
• I wrote an article a little while ago where I suggested using a pilates ball as your chair at work. Well here are 10 good reasons to start doing that at Gearfire. Burning 350 calories a day? That’s 3 chocolate chip cookies!
• Have you ever wondered how much money you save now that you work at home and don’t need to buy lunch? You can find out here! Yet another reason it’s good to be a freelancer.
• Computer Arts has written the freelancer’s survival guide – essential reading for anyone considering taking the leap out of employee status.
• CRM Lowdown has a great article about commanding respect through your body language (good for client meetings).

If you have a useful link or article that you think FreelanceSwitch readers would be interested in, Send It In!

Time for a roundup of useful links from across this beast we call the world wide web:

• Seth Godin discusses the perils of client meetings at his blog.
• Sue Currie at Flying Solo has some good tips on how you can improve your verbal communication skills, which could make all the difference when meeting that prospective client.

A great post at the Cranking Widgets Blog on the 8 Habits of Highly Ineffective Emailing (and what to avoid).

A really fun little tool that will tell you whether something has been written by a man or a woman. I tried out the Gender Genie on FreelanceSwitch and it was 100% accurate. Spooky

Finally, my guru Steve Pavlina lists the 10 Stupid Mistakes Made By The Newly Self-Employed. As usual, wise words from Steve.

If you have a useful link or article that you think FreelanceSwitch readers would be interested in, Send It In!

Here at FreelanceSwitch we like to write a LOT of content and sometimes it can be a bit hard to keep up. So in case you haven’t had a chance to read everything we’ve published over the last month, here is a Best of April (with a couple of May posts thrown in for good measure).

The month and the site kicked off with a post called A Comprehensive Guide to Starting Your Freelance Career. This was actually previously published on my personal blog and the resulting traffic was the inspiration to start FSw. If you haven’t seen it, then its worth reading as it is very comprehensive!

We also got into pricing your services with three posts by three different people on the subject! First I weighed in on Figuring out how much to charge, then Scott gave us a formula to make sure The Price is Right and finally Mathias looked at Hourly vs. Fixed Pricing

Cyan interviewed a very well known freelancer in Laith Bahrani – make of the Low Morale series in what has to be one of the best interviews I’ve ever read..

And on the topic of getting more work we looked at Harnessing Mailouts and a gigantic list of ideas to get more freelance work – a list we will be expanding out into articles every few days for the next 9 months!

So there you have it, the month that was. More freelance advice than you can shake a stick at!

Time for a roundup of useful links from across this beast we call the world wide web:

• Just finished a tight deadline? Leo at Zen Habits shares his 12 Ways to Decompress After High Stress.
• If you’re a freelance web designer and you haven’t read Kevin Airgid’s ebook yet you’re seriously missing out. You can download the Web Designer’s Success Guide for FREE at his site.
• Tim at The Site Doctor has a great resource for those starting a new business. It goes into a lot of detail and can also be downloaded as a PDF.
• Cameron Moll farewells freelancing and shares his final lessons learned. Some great advice for freelancers to consider.

If you have a useful link or article that you think FreelanceSwitch readers would be interested in, Send It In!

Time for a roundup of useful links from across this beast we call the world wide web:

• Need to remind yourself how fabulous your freelancing life is? Check out The 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job at Steve Pavlina’s site. He discusses why freelancing is good for the intellect, skill set, bank account and soul. Steve Pavlina has some fantastic articles so spend some time poking around.
• Ben Stein at Yahoo Finance has some tips on How to Have a Business Conversation. If you’re after corporate clients and want to start networking this article will give you the basics.
• Programmer Jesse Skinner at The Future of The Web looked at his last eight months of freelancing and what he’s learned.
• Andy Budd shares his wisdom with the 7 Habits of a Highly Successful Freelance Web Designer.

If you have a useful link or article that you think FreelanceSwitch readers would be interested in, Send It In!

Update 2: In 2009 we updated this post. With the web changing every day, the best list of job sites changes all the time. Go and read The Monster List of Freelancing Job Sites 2009 Update.

Update: Have added 48 extra resources + New Non-English section, keep those suggestions coming! This post has been translated into Spanish by Alfonso at cultura, comunicación y diseño. Thanks Alfonso!

Image from iStockPhoto

When it comes to freelancing, one of the biggest challenges can be finding work. Even the most successful of freelancers will experience a lean month here and there, so it pays to have as many sources of potential work as possible. That’s why we’ve compiled a monster list of job sites from around the net. There is sure to be a site in here that is listing a job tailor made for you!

Before we get to the list though I would like to mention that as FreelanceSwitch is fast becoming the destination of choice for freelancers we will be adding our own job board for listing freelance gigs. It’s arriving in a fortnight and for the first three months job listings will be totally free of charge to help get the board running.

As with all our lists if we’ve missed a crucial resource, please do send it in, or add it to the comments. We go through these lists every week or so and add in new resources to keep them up to date. Also you will find that we have tagged each site by the types of freelancers who will find it useful as well as the locations it may be applicable for. And now without further ado, here they are:

Traditional Job Listings

These are your bread’n'butter job classifieds, sites from around the web… Continue Reading

Time for a roundup of useful links from across this beast we call the world wide web:

• LifeHack.org has 5 Common Work at Home Problems Solved!
• ErgoBlog shares some recommendations for an Ergonomic Office
• SoloGig News interviews Dan Lockton – a freelance jack-of-all-trades
• TechDig writes up a very useful how-to on what to do when your hard drive is getting full
• Finally the Web Worker Daily lets us in on How to be Productively Unproductive Online, Without Guilt

If you have a useful link or article that you think FreelanceSwitch readers would be interested in, Send It In!

Calling all Freelancing Blogs!

Hello Freelancers! We’re currently putting together a list of freelancing blogs and sites to publish on FreelanceSwitch. If you run a freelancing blog or site or know of one and would like it to be in the list, please leave a comment with the url and a brief description.

We’re after blogs that are dedicated to helping freelance Writers, Programmers, Designers, Illustrators, Architects, Photographers… Hitmen… you name it!

So don’t be shy, hit reply and let us know.

The web is such a big and wonderful place, packed with tools and resources which you all too often don’t know about. So to help all you freelancers out there we have compiled a gigantic list of resources, categorized up for your benefit. If you know a resource that we’ve missed, let us know as we’re always looking to grow this list!

Update: Well it’s actually 126 resources now, thanks to all the people who added resources in the comments.

Update: This article has been translated into Brazillian Portuguese by Rafael Marin.
This article has also been translated into Spanish by Diana at Artegami.
This article has also been translated into Italian by Matteo at Rails On The Road.

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